Upon the very Eve of Midsummer, when the sky was blue as sapphire and white stars opened in the East, but the West was still golden, and the air was cool and fragrant, the riders came down the North-way to the gates of Minas Tirith.
Then the King welcomed his guests, and they alighted; and Elrond surrendered the sceptre, and laid the hand of his daughter in the hand of the King, and together they went up into the High City, and all the stars flowered in the sky. And Aragorn the King Elessar wedded Arwen Undómiel in the City of the Kings upon the day of Midsummer, and the tale of their long waiting and labours was come to fulfillment.
starlightweave's wedding VP
wanted this incredible surprise me comm by @chocolamay to have its very own post~
With how proud Númenor is of its Elvish origins, I feel like it had an obsession with its mythic, first-age past that spilled into its visual language re: power and love. Some examples I’m mulling over:
1. Invoking Beren/Luthien would probably feel a little sacrilegious to lots of people, but if anyone did it, I think Silmarien and her husband would be strong contenders, especially if they were ever trying to make a point re: her suitability for the throne.
2. Consider Anarion coming back from one of his voyages and attending a costume party dressed as Eärendil, and Erendis showed up dressed very pointedly as either Andreth— denied Aegnor’s love by his duty to the Siege of Angband— or a weeping Elwing, adorned with a facsimile of the Silmaril. For a duty of that magnitude I could understand my neglect, her outfit says. But for this? I am a woman wronged.
3. I would also propose that Turin & Nienor / Turambar & Níniel was an edgy couple’s costume at Númenorean masquerade balls.
4. Further, I propose that when Ar-Pharazôn usurped & married Tar-Míriel by force, he was doing his best to hit every note on the Tuor / Idril archetype piano to try and plaster over the coup and the consanguinity with their True and Fated Love and how the joining of their lines would save Númenor from the folly of elf-friends—!
5. But Tar-Míriel’s partisans, and/or Isildur & etc, frame the marriage very differently: as Brodda and Aerin come again.
Silmariën, daughter of Tar-Elendil, watches her brother rule.
(Gen, 600 words, no warnings)
Lady of Andúnië.
Princess.
The titles sit hollow on her brow, weightless and meaningless as the band of glittering mithril. What was the point to being a princess, to being her father’s first born, to bearing the ring of Barahir, when the Sceptre that was hers was in the hand of her baby brother?
The very same babe she had seen wailing in his swaddling clothes, the child who had babbled meaninglessly at her, the youth she had watched hide himself away in his observatory — he wore her crown and cared not for it.
As a girl at her mother’s knee, she had seen her future before her. When only a sister had come, for so many years, it had seemed to Silmariën only natural to expect to be queen. Had her father not brought her to his councils? Had he not employed the finest tutors, the wisest councillors, for her?
He had promised her Númenor. He had lied.
Once, she had asked her mother if she would sit on father’s throne, or hers, when she was queen. Her mother had laughed and told her she could have any seat she wanted, when she was queen. It did not seem so strange — they were of the line of Melian, of Lúthien, of Elwing and Idril. She was as much the heir of Elros Tar-Minyatur as her brother. More so, if one considered the nature of her spirit. Was she truly such a fool for believing that the birth of one squalling baby boy would not be enough to set aside twenty-two years of training?
Now, none turn to her. No one seeks her opinion, her influence, her favour. The fruits of her education are wasted — why nourish a seedling, only to abandon it before it could flower? She could not understand it. She did not want to understand it. Her father’s betrayal was the bitterest draught: all the accomplishments of her mind and hand could not save her from the accident of her birth.
Silmariën clenches her hand around the ring, cold metal digging into her palm. It bubbles within her, this sickly, nauseating feeling, as she watches her brother on her throne, their aged father by his side. The father who had proudly proclaimed her favourite, who had ennobled her infant son, who had given her this heirloom so precious. The father who could not — no, refused — defy tradition and give her his crown. He let the roots he had watered wither away with the frost.
She turns her back on the court. Her footsteps echo on the marble floor, up the winding palace staircases, to the grand balcony overlooking the sea. How easy would it be to throw it all away? Cast the ring and fillet into the sea, and turn her back on it all. A protest. Let the Sea take the line of Tar-Minyatur and all its ancient glory, if this was how it treated its daughters.
But she does not. To be a princess is to put the realm above herself, as her father once taught her. She will break her own heart into a thousand pieces for the good of Númenor. Tar-Meneldur, she knew, would not. The ring of Barahir warms against her skin. She seeks comfort in the familiarity of it on her finger.
She does not go back to the court ever again. She rules Andúnië with Elatan by her side, and it flourishes, and in Valandil she plants the seeds of the faith, of truth, of justice. The branch grows wide and fruitful, but in the roots, she remains, ever over-looked.
So this is about the line of Silmariën, who really should have been the rulers of Númenor.
So Third Ruler of Númenor was Tar-Amandil. His son was Tar-Elendil. His eldest was Silmariën, a daughter, who, because at that point Númenor practiced agnatic primogeniture, did NOT inherit, instead was packed off to Andúnië to marry this guy Elatan, and from their line came the Lords of Andúnië...
...whose last 2 lords were...ready for this? Yes, Amandil and Elendil. And in their time the Rulers of Númenor really came off the rails and their Bad Decisions, that started with Tar-Aldarion, culminated in the spectacular usurpation of Pharazon and the rise of Sauron and eventually, the Fall.
My hot take is that those bookend- Amandils and Elendils really marked the true rulership being passed to the distaff line, and possibly even with some nudge from the Valar. After all, Amandil fulfilled the role of sacred king when he basically took up the petitioner role the kings abdicated when they no longer performed their duties on the Meneltarma. He sailed to Aman to ask forgiveness knowing he had no chance for coming back, but offering himself the way their ancestor Eärendil did.
(yes, there will be a paper on this if I have the time to write it)
Tar-Ancalimë: She is angry, stubborn, and petty of course I was going to like her!! On a slightly more serious note, she is such a fascinating character in regards to her relationship to power. Her father changes the law so she can be queen in her own right, and yet she still gets pushed and coerced into getting married and having a child. The tone of the text seems very judgy but honestly? If I had to go through all that I probably would be kind of mean
Tar-Míriel: I would very much like to rescue her from the narrative and take somewhere nice and safe with no asshole relatives to kidnap her. We also should start looking on if there's a curse placed on queens named Míriel or something
Elros: He counts!!! He's the first one but he counts! And I have so many feelings about him, his life, and his relationship with Elrond. Imagine being a twin your whole life, a life that is nothing but change and uncertainty, and then suddenly you're not really twins anymore? He's still around (and likely will be even after you die), but you're not on the same page anymore. He is no longer your reflection and it's your fault because you're the one that changed. The other day I saw this post and kind of spiraled about this in the tags
Silmariën: She is such an interesting parallel to Ancalimë. No laws were ever changed on her account, and her brother took the throne/scepter. But her father gave her the Ring of Barahir instead of giving it to his heir, and there's enough to make me believe that her father might have wanted her to inherit (and that she might have been in favor of being queen). She seems very "well-behaved" in the text but I would love to explore and see if there's anything lurking beneath the surface
Elentir: I don't care that Tolkien threw him out I need to give my girl some agency in her own life and he's right there!! In earlier drafts he was either Míriel's lover or bethrothed, before she chose (rather be kidnapped and forced) to marry Ar-Pharazôn. Whether we go with Tolkien's drafted and discarded version, or if we rescue him from the cutting floor to give Míriel some joy and freedom in her forced marriage, doesn't matter much to me. I just need my girl to have choices alright!!!
From Silmariën’s lineage came the Kings of Gondor and Arnor living in exile in Middle-earth. She was one of the most significant of Númenor’s royal family, as she inherited both the sword Narsil and the Ring of Barahir from Tar-Elendil, her father. These heirlooms were then handed down to her descendants, the Lords of Andúnië and later the Kings of Gondor and Arnor. The royal jewel, Elendilmir, included a fillet of Mithril that had once belonged to Silmariën survived the Fall of Númenor to become part of the crown of Arnor, and eventually survived up until the time of King Elessar.
For all the male domination of the line of the Rulers of Númenor and Gondor, let’s not forget that Elendil, and thus Aragorn, are actually directly descended from the female line of the House of Elros, via Elros’ great-great-granddaughter Silmariën.
AND let’s not forget that Aragorn’s only connection to Anárion’s line (the actual line of Gondorian Kings) is through his female ancestor Fíriel - who actually is the one who joined the two lines by marrying Isildur’s descendant Arvedui.
Aragorn would never have had any claim to the throne, let alone existed, if it weren’t for those two very important women. The Kings did NOT do it all by themselves.
I just love that Tolkien wrote it like that, instead of having Aragorn be descended entirely from royal men. There’s a lot of “oh his father was this important guy” and “he was the son of this cool dude” but if you look closely, in the end it comes down to two essential foremothers.
(Not to mention the fact that Dior is always referred to as “the son of Lúthien.”)
In Nargothrond in the First Age, Bëor wrote down the oral tradition of his people to pass on to his younger son, Belen. Throughout the rest of that age and the next, his descendants preserve this book through grief and joy, war and cataclysm, from the highlands of Dorthonion to the fall of Númenor, and reencounter the mythology of their people in the ongoing dance of memory and immortality.
Atanatári: (Quenya) The Fathers of Men
Issë: (Quenya) Knowledge, Lore
"Belen [was the] second son of Bëor the Old, to whom the wisdom of Bëor
(for Bëor himself had been one of the wise) was chiefly transmitted."
- Introductory notes to the "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth"
Morgoth's Ring, page 306
